SANTA WARNA'S WISHING WELL, c.1947
Ink and gouache. 17½ x 12½in. (45 x 32cm.)
Inscribed on the reverse of the frame with the artist’s name, the title, c.1947 and the Bolton Studio address.
Provenance
National Trust bequest.
Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery, 1947 (drawings) No. 8.
Penzance, Newlyn Orion Gallery, 1976, No. 29.
The technique is decalcomania.
St Warna was the patron saint of the Scilly Island of St Agnes and presided over wrecks. When islanders wanted a wreck to plunder, it was said that they would go to the well, utter a prayer and drop pins in the water.
Colquhoun wrote an (unpublished) prose poem, The Myth of Santa Warna. The poem deals with the saint’s arrival from Ireland in a hide-covered wicker boat, her wishing well, the Old Man of Gugh and her ultimate identification with the land itself.